WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) — Proposals for the first two medical marijuana dispensaries in Vermont have won conditional approval from the Vermont Department of Public Safety.

The facilities are planned for Burlington and Waterbury.

The state last year passed a law that authorizes up to four privately run dispensaries to provide marijuana for patients with chronic illness or intractable pain.

Vermont has 411 patients and 68 caregivers on the medical marijuana registry, which allows them permission to grow enough for their own use. The dispensaries would give patients who can't grow marijuana another means of getting it.

The department said Wednesday that when each of the two dispensaries satisfies the stipulations in the statute, they will be issued a certificate of operation.

They are expected to open within six months of approval.

Other applications are currently being reviewed. The deadline to apply to run a dispensary was in June.